I Could Start a Religion With the Things I Dont Do
by lovablegeek
Summary: PostS4 - The Doctor forgot a few precautions before leaving Donna in Chiswick, and is forced to deal with the consequences. Sequel to "Make Believe You're Unafraid" and "Pros and Cons". Major 4x13 spoilers.
1. And If I Miss You, And If We Falter

The Doctor flipped a series of switches in rapid succession, and then stopped, eying the entire console (well, the parts of it he could see) like he expected it to burst into flames or something. Which, in fact, he _did_. Considering the last trip he took - or, rather, _tried_ to take - ended in a nasty burn and foam from a fire extinguisher all over his console and the grating beneath it, it seemed a valid concern.

He took it as a positive sign when nothing exploded, set the coordinates to random, and watched with a grin as the time rotor hummed to life. "Right then," he murmured to the TARDIS, or possibly just himself, "off we go... preferably somewhere far from Cardiff..."

Not that the Doctor hadn't enjoyed the visit, but there was only so much of Torchwood - and Jack Harkness - the Doctor could put up with. Especially if Jack was going to frisk him every time he tried to leave the building, with the excuse that he might be stealing Torchwood property. As if the Doctor would resort to petty thievery.

Which reminded him... He fished through his pocket, pulled out the sonic disk he'd found in Torchwood's vaults and tossed it on the jump seat, to be thrown in some storage closet later. Jack would never miss it. Probably.

The time rotor slowed, and then stopped. Grinning, the Doctor grabbed his coat from the railing it had been draped over and bounded down the walkway away from the console. He reached the door just as the phone rang. The Doctor stopped, one hand on the door handle.

The phone rang again. It wasn't Martha's phone - and anyway, if Martha called so soon after he left, he would have to wonder seriously about Torchwood and/or UNIT's ability to be self-sufficient. It was the TARDIS phone, the one built into the console, and there was no reason for that to be ringing, no one even had the number...

It rang again, and the Doctor lunged for it, making it across the room before it had finished the third ring. "Hello?"

"Who is this?" demanded an all too familiar voice. The Doctor slammed the phone down, heartbeats suddenly very loud in his ears.

"No," he whispered hoarsely, to no one in particular. "No, it can't... she can't..." He remembered abruptly that he had left Donna's phone with her. That he hadn't thought to remove any numbers from it before he left her, and...

The Doctor leaned forward with a groan, and his forehead hit the console at about the same time the phone rang again. The Doctor picked it up, let it fall back into the cradle, and hoped desperately that she would give up. Because it was Donna Noble calling him, and he'd never known her to give up on anything she was actually interested in, she didn't.

There was no answerphone, so it just kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Once, it stopped, and the Doctor looked over hopefully, but it quickly resumed and he decided she'd probably just lost the connection on her end and called him back. He could leave. Just walk out of the TARDIS, and by the time he came back it would almost certainly have stopped, but...

He started to push himself away from the console, but froze before he actually stepped away. It had been ringing for almost five minutes. And if she was going to be that persistent, she wouldn't just leave it alone. He sighed, and picked up the phone.

"I'm here."

"Well, you'd better be," Donna snapped, almost before the words were out of his mouth. "Don't you have an answerphone?"

An answerphone. All the things she could have said and she asked about _answerphones_. The Doctor spun around so he could lean back against the console, just managing to avoid tangling himself in the phone cord. "How... Why did you ring here?"

"Because your number is on my phone with a little blue box next to it instead of a house or a mobile." The Doctor just managed not to groan aloud. "Who **are** you?"

Free hand pinching the bridge of his nose, he answered, "Right. Sorry. John Smith. Must've been a mistake - best if you just take the number off and forget about it." _Please._

"I don't **think** so, mister. How did your number get on my phone? And what the **bloody** hell is a TARDIS?"

The Doctor's hearts jumped at the last word.He swallowed hard and tried not to let it show in his voice. "It's- how should I know? It's your phone!" Eventually, she had to give up and leave him alone, right?

"Well, I've never met you, so **why are you in my mobile**?"

Maybe not.

"_I don't know_," the Doctor snapped back, despite himself, and hung up the phone, harder than was really necessary. He stared at it for a moment, breathing hard, willing it to stay silent.

It rang again in under a minute and, reluctantly, he picked up. "_What_?" It came out almost a growl. _Just go away, leave me alone, I'm trying to **help** you..._

"WHO ARE YOU?" He flinched away from the phone, just momentarily, his ear ringing. Should have expected the shouting sooner or later...

"I told you! John Smith! I was..." He cast about for an explanation, and settled finally on one that seemed safe and maybe even somewhat believable. "I'm a friend of your granddad's. Alright?"

"Why do I have your number in my mobile if you're just a friend of my granddad's?"

"I don't know! I haven't got anything to do with your phone!" The Doctor paused, and then hurried on, "...except, apparently, that I'm on it. Look, I'm a bit busy right now. Places to go, things to do. Can you just accept that I don't know, hang up, and forget this ever happened?"

"**No**. And you know why? Because there is no reason your number would be in my mobile if I didn't know you, but **I don't bloody know you**!"

"Alright, well _take it off_! Problem solved!" And now she had him shouting back at her. Brilliant.

"But how did you get there in the first place?"

The Doctor thumped his hand against the console in sheer frustration, and then hissed at the jolt of pain that ran up his wrist. "It's not. My. Phone," he ground out through clenched teeth. "I don't know. And believe me, it's for your own good if you just hang up the phone and stop thinking about it. Please."

"You know what _I_ think?" she asked, and the Doctor resisted the urge to mutter something uncomplimentary. "_I_ think you're being evasive, Doctor, and you need to just **stop it** and..."

There was more to that, the Doctor was sure. The sentence continued, and he could hear her dimly still going on, but for him, everything in the universe ground to a halt for just a moment. _No._

"Why did you call me that?" he asked finally, faintly.

She paused, apparently derailed from whatever she'd just been saying. "What?"

"Nothing." He closed his eyes, swallowed hard. "Nothing. Just... I have to go." The words were out of his mouth before he could think about them, the phone in the cradle before he could stop himself. Did it matter if he hung up now? Maybe just the difference between listening while she died and just... never knowing.

Maybe he should ring her back.

He couldn't make himself move to program the command into the TARDIS.

The phone rang of its own accord, after a minute or two. The Doctor stared at it, let it ring three times... four... five... He picked it up, finally, because at a certain point there weren't any other options. He tried for a steady tone - calm, composed. It came out more scared, a little angry. No helping that.

"Donna Noble. Hang up the phone. Take this number off of it. And forget you ever rang here. I need you to do all of those things, right now?"

The silence on the line only lasted a breath or two, and then Donna's voice came shakily, just one word. "Doctor?"

He leaned forward slowly, braced one arm against the console, because he felt that if he didn't, he might just fall over. "Donna?"

"I think... something's wrong."

He almost laughed. Almost, one of those utterly inappropriate laughs that always bubbled up at the worst moments whether he wanted them or not, because it was that or breaking and he couldn't afford that. He choked it back, leaving a solid, uncomfortable lump in his throat. "You remember."

"I remember. It..." She trailed off, with a shaky breath, and finally said quietly, "I didn't want to forget, you know."

There was a rising panic in the back of his mind, something repeating a desperate _no no no no no no_, but he shoved it down, choked it back, tried to sound calm as he answered, "Just... Donna, stay there. Just stay where you are. It's alright." He hung up, for the third or fifth or tenth time, and hit the edge of the console again, letting out a short, rising growl that stopped just short of a scream of frustration. He could go back and fix her memories again, take his number off her phone, and it might be fine - or she might just break through the blocks again, and the next time he wouldn't even know it was happening, wouldn't know to fix it...

The Doctor let out a breath through clenched teeth and lunged for the phone again, programmed the number for Jack's office in the Hub he thought he'd never have cause to use but Jack insisted he have anyway. Not a permanent solution, but it would give him time...

"Jack!" he shouted as soon as he heard the click of the phone being picked up.

There was a confused, nerve-wracking pause, and then Gwen's voice answered slowly, "He left two hours ago... Do you need me to tell him something?"

The Doctor resisted the urge to kick something, fought to unclench his jaw, and asked, "What did he leave for? Where is he?"

"He left because... _you_ called."

"Because I..." The Doctor groaned and smacked his forehead with the hand not holding the phone. "Right. Sorry. Forget this happened."

He hung up the phone yet again, closed his eyes and willed himself to calm down just a little, enough that he wouldn't be shouting over the phone, and dialed the same number as before. This time, he made sure to specify the time and date of his call.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist calling me," Jack said as he picked up the phone, a grin evident just from the tone of his voice. The Doctor grimaced.

"Stop it, I don't have time for that. I need you to do something for me - don't ask questions, just listen, and I'll explain later. I need you to go to London, Chiswick, Donna Noble's house. Donna's there, and she's dying. Or she will be, in a few hours, by the time you get there. Find her, put her in cryonic storage, take her back to the Hub. I can't really... just... Help her."

He hung up the phone without waiting for Jack's response - he already knew Jack would do as he said, after all. He could call a few hours after _that_, see if it actually worked, if he got there in time... He could go to the Hub himself, just in time for Jack to return, make sure everything was alright, or as alright as it could be...

Instead, he turned around slowly, away from the console, and sank to the grated floor slowly, dropping to sit cross-legged and lean his head back against the edge of the console. He should be doing something now, there were so many things he _should_ be doing, but...

The Doctor closed his eyes. _I didn't want to forget, you know._ Just that gentle tone, reproach without criticism. It would have been easier if she'd shouted at him, if she'd blamed him, even if she'd hated him.

That, at least, he would know how to deal with. If he went back now... if he found a way to fix it, if he could wake her up again without the Time Lord mind tearing her fragile human brain apart... he wasn't sure he could handle her forgiving him.


	2. Teach Me to Run From Myself

If anyone asked, he could say the TARDIS just did this sometimes. He meant to arrive in Cardiff, 2009, on the Plass above the Hub, and instead... it materialized somewhere else altogether. It wasn't as if Martha or Jack could disagree with that, and a TARDIS wasn't meant to be piloted by one person anyway...

As he set the coordinates, he half-imagined he saw her out of the corner of his eye. He didn't turn to look, because she'd be gone, it would ruin the illusion. But he could imagine the look on her face right now, grinning at him, eyes bright and eager. Or... no. She'd know what he was doing, just now, she'd be giving him a look all reproving and concerned and a little annoyed.

Of course, if she were here she wouldn't have reason to, because there would be nothing to run away from.

He wound up on a planet he didn't know the name of, in the middle of some sort of war, and couldn't help but smile bitterly to himself thinking about how Donna would accuse him of _looking_ for trouble. He met a girl - purple skin,nice smile, who told him she hadn't wanted to go to war in the first place - and offered her a ride because _she_ would have told him to save someone.

He travelled to Stillwater, a tourist planet all covered in ice. Donna would have complained at the lack of a beach - all these ice planets and not one beach - but she'd have stopped when he pointed out the never-ending light show in the sky above. He didn't stay for more than an hour - nothing for him to do on planets like this when he had no one to share it with.

He wandered to Manhattan in the 1980s, tracked down a memnovore preying on the inhabitants of the East Village. She'd have insisted on dressing appropriately for the time period, any excuse to raid the wardrobe. Maybe she'd have even done her hair to fit, if she were here for it, and the image almost made him smile.

At Osiris and Elessi and Poosh, she was there, in the corner of his eye and the corner of his mind, and by the time he made it back to Cardiff, he couldn't remember if it was by accident or design. They had her frozen, downstairs, and Martha led him quietly down to see her, hung back with a worried frown while he stood in front of the cryogenic containment unit they were keeping Donna in. It wasn't forever, he told himself. Just until he found a way to save her, and he would, of course he would, he was _brilliant_...

But it was pointless making promises to someone who couldn't hear him, who wasn't even alive at the moment, by most definitions of the word. "I wish you were here," he said quietly instead, and for once couldn't think what her response would be.


End file.
